


starboy

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Crime, Delinquents, Drugs, F/M, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide Attempt, pregame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 23:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Momota Kaito is a washed-up nineteen year old, both clinging onto and trying to run from all the possibilities he let go of. When he meets a homeless girl, with a terrifying glint of longing in her eye, he finds that running is better when there's someone running with you...and they're running towards a fate that's already been sealed for them.





	starboy

Momota swings the baseball bat behind his head and takes a hit at the glass window on the far side of the room; when the shards fly from the broken pane, he makes no attempt to shield his face, letting the sharpness cut into his cheeks as he smiles at his own destruction. This, completely, is caused by him, and it’s a powerful sense of control that he can’t find anywhere else. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he lifts the bat again, this time smashing it down onto the counter. Although he knows that there won’t be any money left in there, it’s just satisfying to find something and _ruin_ it; like his own body, bloody and bruised, a shattered self.

He gasps in, deep breaths of borrowed air, as he shoves his fists into the drawers by the counter and punches the wood until it splinters; he suspects that he’s left tiny morsels of his own flesh behind, but he knows that the police won’t care enough to take any DNA evidence – that’s why he targets these places. For his destructive satisfaction, he only needs to burn and smash and crush and hurt, he doesn’t need to target high-profile establishments for this thrill. Although, one day, he would like to. But he’s had his taste of running from the law, and running gets tiring if you can’t stop every once in a while and calm yourself by smashing up an old drugstore.

Imagining the owner’s face in the morning, shocked and betrayed, Momota smiles. He will _cause_ this. A whirlwind of a washed-up nineteen year old, he’s only satisfied if he’s leaving a trail of broken glass and petty theft behind him.

But still, there’s a familiar glint in his eye that he hasn’t managed to bubble and boil away with his tough exterior; it’s reminiscent of a child genius, someone with promise and poise and an almost-set-in-stone future at one of the country’s top universities. His parents’ little astronaut, bright eyed, still reckless, but meaningful in his actions. Just a ghost of a man now; whatever crawled out of the car crash that killed his parents was not the same person who had gotten into the car only twenty minutes earlier.

He pulls a penknife from his pocket and walks over to the door. For whatever reason, he feels the need to leave his mark wherever he goes – he specifically doesn’t smash doors for this exact reason. Instead, he carves a crude planet into the glass, spray-painting over it and dotting stars around. Admiring his artwork and everything it represents to him, he turns and walks away into the blistering cold of the night, without a jacket, smiling with cigarette-stained teeth in the darkness.

It's not long before he finds himself a bar. He’s careful not to visit the same one twice in a month, since he has no intention of paying and he’s sure that some pissed off bartenders remember his face; but he orders a line of ten shots, giving a winning smile at the easily fooled woman behind the bar. She opens a tab for him without asking for a card.

“I’m just steppin’ out for a cigarette, doll,” he says, twenty minutes later, semi-slurring his words. The woman smiles, and he knows he’s got her wrapped around his little finger. Once he’s left the bar, he has no intention of returning inside and paying his bill; he doesn’t even run, he just walks at a moderate pace until he’s turned the corner, and then he’s on his way back home.

 _Home._ As if he can even call it that anymore. It’s just an abandoned building with a few mattresses he grabbed from the dump, a barely-working kettle, and too many stolen instant noodles to count. The worst part is, he knows he’s still welcome back at his grandparents’ house, but he couldn’t – for want or shame – go back there after leaving so long ago, so unexpectedly.

But it’ll do for him. There’s no legal papers stating this, but he knows…it’s _his._

So he pushes open the door and traipses through to the back bedroom, tracing his fingertips over the peeling wallpaper. There’s a moth-eaten jumper on the broken radiator and he pulls it over his shirt; he remembers when it used to hang, bright purple, in the wardrobe at his parents’ house, but now it fits too loosely on him. He rolls the sleeves up and gets ready to fall onto his mattress for another night of restless sleep.

But there’s someone there.

A girl, around his age, but frail…small. She’s sleeping, holding all of Momota’s blankets close to her body like they’re her lifeline. As pale as she is, he suspects that this is the closest she’s gotten to not-freezing in the past few months, especially with the temperatures being what they have been. Normally, he wouldn’t have the heart to wake her, but he’s learned now that if you’re soft – if you’re kind – you only get used and taken advantage of, so he walks up to her and shakes her on the shoulder.

“Hey, missy, you’re in my house.”

She startles herself awake and, when she sees him, puts her hands out and scuttles to the other end of the room, grabbing all the blankets that she can and making a bolt for the door. Confused, but not willing to lose his only assets in the cold so easily, he beats her there and stops her.

“What the fuck? You can’t just come into my house and steal my stuff!”

“Didn’t know it was _your_ stuff,” she says bitterly, “besides, I wouldn’t sound so proud to live in a shithole like this if I were you.”

“Hey, you seemed perfectly fine sleeping in it a minute ago.”

“Well, some of us don’t have a choice.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna need those blankets back.”

“Fine,” she glares at him, dropping them on the floor, presumably just to give him the extra work of picking them up. As she turns to leave, Momota grabs her arm and turns her around.

“Sorry. I’m a dick. Here,” he holds out two of the blankets – one of them is the warmest one he owns, and by far his favourite, “take these.”

“I don’t take handouts.”

“Think of it as stealing.”

“It’s not stealing if you’re giving them to me.”

“Whatever,” Momota shrugs, “just an offer.”

Looking anywhere but his eyes, the girl grabs one of the blankets – the warmest one – and walks out of the house before Momota can even begin to process what just happened. When he calls after her, realising that he doesn’t even know her name, he sees that the door still swings wide open, and she’s disappeared long into the night.

* * *

 

The next time fate brushes him into her, months have passed. And the night begins without a trace of her in the air; it’s just Momota, a bar, and a knife that shouldn’t have been brought into a fight.

He sits on a barstool, downing shot number eleven…no, twelve…no…whatever. Keenly, his eyes dart around the room, looking for anyone who has the same acidic boil in their blood as he does. As long as he finds someone like him, he knows exactly the wrong things to say – or the right things, depending on how you view the situation – to provoke them. And that’s his end goal, a bloody, horrific fight, where he can taste iron on his gums and rough up his hands with hastily thrown punches.

And it comes to him. Oh, does it come to him. In the stifling heat of sweat and alcohol, a stark contrast to the biting cold outside, he finds himself squaring up to a man much bigger than he is, pushed against a wall in some alleyway near the bar. He’s always liked to think that he shines brightest – like the stars he won’t get to see any more – when he’s outmatched; Momota the underdog, the one an unseen audience loves, _roots for._

But when the first punch is thrown, he knows that this is a fight he’s doomed to lose. Still, he gets a few kicks and offhand punches of his own in, but when the other guy pulls a knife, all Momota can think of is how unfair life is, to rip his future away from him, take his parents and his motivation, and then pull a knife on him in a dark alleyway and let the cold seep into his bones through an open wound.

He coughs, visceral, terrified, blood dripping from his mouth as the other man walks away. It’s just a flesh wound, he knows that because this isn’t the first one he’s had, but it doesn’t hurt any less each time.

Stumbling, he finds his way through the streets until he finds a pharmacist that he vandalised a few days ago. The carved and spray-painted planet is still on the door, and he smiles through bloody teeth at the sight of his own destructive creation, as he pushes on the glass and collapses inside.

“Damn it,” he mutters, fumbling with his own wound, blood staining his hands and getting under his dirtied fingernails. He’s clumsy as he crashes through the aisles, looking for any medical supplies – with his limited knowledge, he still believes in himself enough to be able to fix up his unimportant stab wound. As he squints in the dark, his eyes not-quite-trained onto something that he doesn’t even know he’s looking for, he sees another person, staring at him from the end of the aisle.

“W-Who are you?” He recognises the voice. It takes him more than a moment to place it, by which time, she’s walked into the faint trace of moonlight that seeps through the still-broken window. It’s blanket girl, the same one who broke into his house months ago.

“Don’t remember me?” Momota laughs, but winces as he does so. He’s trying to seem cool; he’s learned that he can’t show any weakness, but his wound betrays him, and her face seems confused.

“Never did catch your name last time,” he continues, “what do I call you?”

“Right now, you call me your saviour, ‘cause that’s a pretty horrific stab wound you’ve got there.”

“It’s nothin’. Just need some medical supplies and I’ll be outta here. What are you doing?”

“Getting supplies. Y’know, deodorant and packet food and all that shit. Whatever I can take. It’s gotten a lot easier to steal since this town’s been overrun by _Starboy.”_

“Starboy?”

“You know, the one who vandalises all these shops and paints planets on the doors.”

“T-That’s me,” Momota says, shocked, but feeling a strange sense of pride, “I kinda like that name. Starboy.”

“Wait, that’s _you?_ Fucking hell.”

“The one and only.”

“Jesus, is there anything you don’t do? Vandalise, steal, and now apparently get yourself stabbed.”

“What can I say, I’m a man of many talents. Does everyone call me Starboy?”

“Nah, just me. Got a bit tired of thinking of you as _the reckless asshole who smashes up shops and paints like a fucking three year old.”_

“Hey! I never got your name. If you don’t tell me, I’ll make up a nickname for you.”

“Harukawa,” she says as she walks over to him, “Harukawa Maki.”

“Like Harumaki! That’s what I’m gonna call you.”

“I thought you said you’d only give me a stupid nickname if I _didn’t_ tell you my name?”

“Hey, it ain’t stupid!”

“Whatever,” Harukawa says as she sits him down against the aisle, “I’m going to get whatever medical supplies I can. Just…stay here. Don’t fuck shit up.”

“Can’t promise anything,” he smiles. When she walks away, he notices for the first time that she’s wearing the blanket he gave her – she’s cut a hole for the head and arms, and she’s wearing it as a full body sort of coat. He doesn’t know why, but this makes him… _happy._ Or, at least, he thinks it would make him happy, if he could feel happiness – or anything except pain and desperation – anymore.

She comes back, holding a full bag.

“Your house isn’t far from here, right? We’ll take you there and get you sorted out.”

“Sure,” Momota says, “whatever you say.”

When he begins to noticeably limp as he’s walking, she hoists his arm around her neck and supports most of his weight; she’s stronger than she looks, even with her frail body, and he wonders what the hell she’s had to endure in her life.

Back in his house, she lays him down on the mattress and pulls his shirt up. His hands shake as she passes him the hem of his own shirt to hold onto; wordlessly, he follows her cues.

“It’s bad, Starboy. Real bad.”

“Nah, you’re lyin’ to me, Harumaki.”

“I’m not. This is gonna sting…a lot.”

“I’m tough, I can handl- _ow!”_

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He bites down on his bottom lip as tears spring into his eyes; he hates it, but he can’t help the fact that his stomach feels like it’s burning in absolute agony.

“Here,” Harukawa says, holding out her free hand, “I can do this one handed.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re trying not to cry. It doesn’t make you any less of a man to squeeze my hand for this next part.”

He does so, and for a moment, he slips out of consciousness when the wave of pain gets too much; it’s feels like what she’s doing is hurting a lot more than it’s helping, but what would he know about people’s intentions? When he comes to, Harukawa’s face is closer to his than it was before, and she’s gently slapping him on the cheek.

“Fuck, I’m not good at this shit,” she says, “stay awake.”

“I’m tryin’, Harumaki!”

“Try harder.”

He does, but it’s futile; he suspects that she’s trying to stitch him up with homemade stitches, and it cuts into him – the pain of his stab wound is enough, but with the added pressure of it being sterilised, and now this…he passes out again in a wave of heat and sweat.

He wakes again, drenched in his own sweat, feeling hot and cold at the same time; the slick heat that covers him makes him throw the blanket from his body.

“Really, Starboy? I’m kind enough to tuck you into bed and you do this?”

“Harumaki? How…long was I out?”

“About ten minutes. You had a pulse and shit so…I know nothing about medicine. I’m not a doctor. I’m just a stupid girl on the streets.”

“Yeah, well I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. So…thanks.”

“You even said yourself that it wasn’t a big wound.”

“Yeah…yeah I did.”

“Anyway, Starboy, what’s your real name?”

“I’m reluctant to tell you. I like Starboy so much.”

“Come on. I told you mine.”

“Fine. I’m Momota Kaito. But…Starboy is fine.”

“Whatever, _Momota._ You’re fine now. I’ll be off.”

“Harumaki, stay. You just said you’re on the streets. This bed’s big enough for two. Besides, I still wanna know…why’d you fix me up? You could have just let me bleed out there.”

“Don’t get sentimental. You did me a favour by giving me this blanket. I don’t like being in people’s debt, so we’re even now. Like I said, I’ll be going.”

“Wait,” he says, “I could like, choke on my own vomit or something. You haven’t exactly paid off your debt if I die tonight. So stay.”

“What do you really want?”

“Just stay. Don’t be stubborn.”

“Fine. But I’m sleeping on the floor.”

“But we’re not sleeping yet. I wanna talk.”

“Momota, you were literally stabbed. Do you really think now is the best time for a chat?”

“Come on, Harumaki! I wanna get to know you.”

“That’s not happening.”

“Tell you what – I’ll tell you somethin’ about me, and then you tell me somethin’ about you!”

“What makes you think I want to get to know you?”

“You’re still here.”

Harukawa says nothing. Slowly, she shifts her weight so that she’s sitting more comfortably on the bed, and then pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket.

“You smoke?”

“Yeah,” Momota says, taking one. He pulls a lighter from underneath his mattress and lights hers before his own.

“So,” she says, taking a drag, “why’re you living here?”

“I like it.”

“No, I mean, you can’t be more than, what, eighteen? Why are you not at home?”

“I’m nineteen. And I don’t have one.”

“Voluntarily, or…?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell me.”

 _“You_ tell _me.”_

“There’s nothing to tell,” Harukawa says, “I’m nineteen, nearly twenty, stuck on the streets since I got kicked out of my orphanage at age sixteen. I’m an open book, but not one worth reading.”

“Oh. I…uh…I’m a little different.”

“Go on.”

“Life was good. I was all set to go to uni, like, maybe a year ago? God, time’s fucked when you’re living like this. But my parents…they died in a car crash. I was there. I survived. And I was supposed to go and live with my grandparents, but I just…I couldn’t. Fuck, Harumaki, I was gonna be an astronaut. Go to space and all that. What am I now? Just Starboy. A pathetic, washed up criminal.”

“And your grandparents? Where are they now?”

“Probably still in the same house. Maybe wondering where I am? I don’t…care anymore.”

“You’re so selfish.”

“Not exactly the reception I was expecting?”

“What else did you expect, Momota? You had _everything._ And yeah, your parents died, and that sucks, and I’m sorry, but you threw away your entire life like you were so convinced that nothing was worth it anymore. I’m sorry, but I can’t sympathise with that. I’ve been here, wishing I was someone else, thinking I finally found someone I could relate to. And what – you’re just a spoilt little rich boy who ran away from his problems? You had all the chances I would _kill_ for, and you just threw them all away.”

“B-But, Harumaki…”

“Save it. I don’t care. I was wrong to even start trusting you.”

She stands up from the bed and walks towards the door. Momota tries to follow her, but moving at all rips his wound apart, and he falls back down onto the bed; all he can do is stretch out his hand, wordlessly reaching for her.

“If you pass out again, go to a doctor,” she says, and leaves him alone in the dark. When he looks to the side, he sees that she’s taken off the blanket he gave her and left it on the floor. Mentally kicking himself, he closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

But he can’t. All he can think about is what she said to him. How pathetic he is, how selfish; his grandparents’ faces flash through his mind, intertwining with the mangled bodies of his parents, and it burns his head to think of how he left them all behind. There comes a point wherein amends cannot be made, and he passed that long ago, so the only thing left now to do is the right thing.

The right thing, to his unstable mind.

* * *

 

Packing up everything he owns, which, albeit, isn’t much, he places everything onto his mattress, including Harukawa’s blanket, which he folds. All he has left now are a half-smoked packet of cigarettes and a lighter, a small bottle of whiskey, and his own depression.

He knows that there’s a lake not far from here, and that’s where he wants to bring a close to this sad act. It’s not a long walk, but it doubles in time whilst he’s limping there; it’ll all be worth it, he tells himself, and it is.

It _is_ worth it when he sees a little rowboat parked on the dock. Easy enough to steal – all he has to do is untie some ropes, and he’s off, sailing away, pretending like the lake is the sea, and the sea is the sky, and the sky is full of all the stars he never reached; their bright burn tantalising, his fingertips ashen.

And then he’s out there, bobbing along in a stolen rowboat on a lake that isn’t quite the sea, taking cigarette after cigarette out of his packet and drinking whiskey straight. He flicks his ash down into the murky water, and runs a hand through his tangled hair when he contemplates the depth. It won’t be long now, he thinks, only two more cigarettes and another few gulps of whiskey; he’s always lived in the moment, so there’s no point dying with alcohol still in his bottle.

But now it’s over. And there’s nothing left to take except one last, deep breath, and rock the boat for the final time.

When the water engulfs him, the first thing he can think of is that it’s so _cold,_ colder than the night he met Harukawa, and it’s all around him, piercing into his fresh wound; it makes him want to gasp, but his survival instincts tell him that he has to hold his breath. Even now, in the clutches of suicide, he still isn’t strong enough to overcome the most basic, primal core of himself, of the humanity that he no longer feels he belongs to.

Finally, though, the little air in his lungs dissipates, and he breathes in the water; it triggers something within him and he keeps gasping for air that isn’t there, until at last, even his brain gives in, and the already-murky world fades to a distant grey that’s not quite black.

And dying feels a lot like having his heart squeezed dry of all the love. Distant pumps of a hydraulic press shattering his entire body, and something soft, too…lips on his own, desperate gasps of borrowed air, until he opens his eyes and finds that, although he’s alive, he’s closer to the peace of heaven than he’s ever been before.

He coughs. Over and over, spewing out lake-water all over his chest, all over the floor. There’s a sigh to the side of him, and his neck creaks as he turns and sees Harukawa, breathless and terrified.

“You idiot,” she breathes, “what the fuck were you thinking?”

“Y-You,” he tries to talk, but coughs up more water instead. When he tries to sit up, he finds that his stab wound feels a lot worse now, naturally, and he falls back down onto the dock.

 _“What,_ did what I said really get to you?”

He nods.

“Fuck…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…well I did…I didn’t think you’d do _this.”_

“Y-You…were…right,” he chokes out.

“I didn’t mean you were irredeemable! I need to get you to a hospital.”

“N-No. I’ll…get…arrested. No doubt s-someone,” he coughs with every word, “knows my face.”

“I can’t just let you die!”

“I’m…alive aren’t I?”

“I don’t know how long for.”

“C-Come on. Let’s just go back to the house. You can watch me if you like, make sure I don’t die on you.”

“Fine,” Harukawa says, and Momota tries his hardest to smile. As he tries to get up, he winces, and she sweeps him off his feet, carrying him bridal style before he can even protest.

“Harumaki, how the hell are you so strong? Seriously, I’m fine, I can walk.”

“No, you can’t.”

“But how…?”

“I had to get tough long ago.”

She carries him the rest of the way in silence, and when they get back to the house, he doesn’t say a word, but he notices that she puts him directly onto the bed. As she surveys all of his things, neatly packed up with the expectation that he wouldn’t be returning, he cringes, especially when she picks up a note that he only now remembers writing in his depressed frenzy. But suddenly, all the words come flooding back to him, each one like a knife into his heart.

_To Harumaki,_

_Have this. All of it. I won’t be needing it any more. And I wrote down the address of my grandparents. I’m too proud to go back to them, but they’re kind, good people – tell them you knew me, and they’ll give you a helping hand. Just…lie to them about me, yeah? Tell them I was good._

_Starboy._

She crumples the note and puts it in her pocket, unaware that he’s been watching her read it. He closes his eyes just as she looks up, saving himself the embarrassment of explaining; if she can read him at all, she’ll know to leave it alone.

“Let’s get you dry,” she says, “you got a towel around here anywhere?”

“Yeah. Over there.”

She sits behind him and gently rubs the towel through his hair, and eventually all over the rest of him – it feels _familiar,_ like an embrace, and when she’s done, he pulls her down to lie with him. They cover themselves in blankets and fall asleep just like that. Soft. _Home._

* * *

 

It becomes routine for them both to stay in the house together. Over time, it becomes not ‘Momota’s house’, or ‘the house’, but _‘our house’,_ and every time Momota says those words, he feels like things may be looking up for him; even though there’s the perpetual nagging doubt that he doesn’t deserve this.

One night, Harukawa walks into the bedroom with a smile on her face. It’s been a pretty hard week for both of them, they’ve not really eaten much – of course, they’ve been stealing as usual, but something in the air is just seeping motivation out of them like blood.

“Look what I got,” she says, holding something behind her back.

“What is it babe?”

She brings her hands forward and shows him a small bag of white powder, a terrifying glint in her eye.

“We’re not gonna be hungry any more,” she laughs, “’cause this shit’ll ruin our appetites!”

“Harumaki…you really bought cocaine? With what money?”

 _“Bought?_ Don’t be stupid. I stole it from a dealer. Easy enough, he didn’t even see me. I’m an advanced pickpocket.”

“Harumaki! He could come after you!”

“He doesn’t even know what I look like, let alone my name. Besides, it ain’t my first time, and I’m betting it ain’t yours either.”

“Okay, you’re right. So you wanna do it now?”

“Hell yeah,” she seems happier than she has in a while. It saddens Momota a little to think that it’s drugs that bring light to her life, and not…well, him. But he can’t complain, especially when he’s nose deep in a line.

That night, they laugh harder than they have in forever. And the world seems like everything is brighter, more vivid as they traipse the streets, arms hooked within each other, hopping from bar to bar and spending no money at all. It’s a beautiful kind of ecstasy, where they don’t care about a damn thing for a few hours. It feels like it’ll never wear off.

In fact, they’re so high on the illusion that they can do _anything,_ it comes as no big deal for them when Harukawa has the idea to rob an open petrol station. Mask on, she walks inside whilst Momota waits around the corner, emerging with a fistful of cash and two packets of cigarettes.

“Harumaki! How the hell?”

“It was easy, just flashed my knife and they gave it all to me! I know the policies, it’s fair enough when it’s a big chain – they’re trained to just hand it over, no casualties.”

The cocaine begins to wear off just as sirens sound in the distance. Flashing a frantic look at Harukawa, Momota pulls her into an alleyway just as the police chase begins, cars and men on foot not far off in the distance, and his only coherent thought is to run – _run, with her._

But they hit a dead end, and in their panic, there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere left to run. And in his mind, Momota begins to formulate a plan.

“Let me take the fall for this one,” he says, breathless.

“No way! It was my idea. Run, or we’re going down together.”

“Harumaki, you’ve saved my life twice. You know what you said about repaying debts, yeah? Let me have this one.”

“No! I take the consequences of my own choices.”

The policemen on foot get closer; one more corner, and they’ll be able to see the pair of them.

“So do I,” Momota says, and he closes his eyes for a moment, before grabbing the mask out of Harukawa’s hand and putting it on his own head. She starts to protest, but he pulls out a knife and holds it to her neck.

And she flinches. God, she flinches, and Momota almost caves and gives up the whole thing in that instant. But it doesn’t matter if she hates him, resents him, _fears him;_ he knows that she still has the note that he wrote on the night he jumped into the lake, and she’ll be okay without him. Through the eyeholes in the thick mask, he sees her face, blatantly terrified, and stuck somewhere between confusion and the crush of betrayal. His heart, having only just begun to mend, shatters like it’s been hit by a car, or perhaps crushed under a distant memory.

When the police are almost around the corner, he looks her in her eyes, and tries to communicate everything through the thick cotton that restricts his face. Grabbing the money that she’s still holding, he stuffs as much of it as he can in his back pocket, and prepares for the fallout.

There’s shouting, and handcuffs, and the begging voice of Harukawa falling flat in the night air. But at least he’s the only one in the back of the police car, engulfed by the vivid red and blue of the sirens all around him.

In the interrogation cell, he asks for nothing. No water, no lawyer, not even…her. He just stays silent, biting down on his venomous lies even when they tell him that she’s not pressing charges, that the woman he _‘attacked’_ tried to take the fall for the petrol station theft. The only time he opens his mouth, dry with hours of misuse, is when the questioning officer stands up.

“So, are you charging me with anything?”

“The woman – she refused to give us her name – told us that you’d done nothing wrong. That it was all just a misunderstanding. But the fact is, we found you holding a knife to the throat of a defenceless young woman, and you drug-tested as positive for cocaine.”

“So what? Throw me in a jail cell for a couple of months?”

“You know that’s not how we work in this society anymore, Momota. We’re peaceful, and it’s people like you who need to be kept in line. Put you in jail, and you’ll just get out and offend again. No…you know how things play out since the gracious Team Danganronpa cleaned up our society.”

“What, you’re gonna, like, _force me_ to apply?”

“Oh no. Team Danganronpa doesn’t want the scum of society like you. They want real people, with promise…child geniuses and the sort. That’s what makes for a compelling show. Not predictable criminals like you. You’ll just be doing community service, handing out the application flyers for the _good_ people of our city to get a change at immortal fame.”

_Immortal fame. Good people._

His stare hardens, as does his resolve. Something bubbles within him and he grips his own terror in his fists as he holds nothing but the stagnant air around him, resolute and desperate, a man on the run, with love in his heart and always, _always_ something to prove.

* * *

 

Harukawa is waiting around the corner of the station for him. She immediately pulls him into a hug, and when they break apart, she slaps him hard across the face.

“What the _fuck,_ Momota?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I...” Momota’s voice trails off when he sees the line of scabs on her neck where he must have accidentally pressed the knife in too deeply.

“I _know._ I know what your fucking plan was, I knew from the moment you put on that damn mask, but…why?”

“Because I’m sick of being a nobody, Harukawa. I thought I could find meaning in saving you, but it’s just left me emptier than ever before. Sure, I’m glad you’re safe, and I want to be by your side, but…surely there’s more than this?”

“If there is, we’ll never reach it.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” he holds out the stack of flyers, letting them all drop from his hands and be taken by the wind, flying to new homes and possibilities…all except one, which he grasps onto tightly like it’s his last lifeline. She reads it.

“Together?” Momota says.

Harukawa’s eyes squint in the morning sunlight, although it doesn’t warm Momota’s skin, and he sees that she’s still covered in goosebumps. She nods, as surely as she’s ever made a gesture towards him.

And they walk off, away from the direction that most of the flyers blew. They know exactly where they’re going.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! I love pregame momoharu and I ended up writing 5k words of it, haha. Also, pregame Momota and Harukawa do not make good decisions, and their relationship isn't exactly healthy. Whilst it's interesting to explore, it's not something that anyone should try to emulate.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked!
> 
> EDIT: Listen to 'Lemon to a Knife Fight' by The Wombats whilst reading.


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